


Two Hours by Shuttle

by sallysorrell



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Inspired by Art, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 01:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10561460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallysorrell/pseuds/sallysorrell
Summary: Time and luck are understood differently on Cardassia than they are within the Federation.  It might take a few more years for Garak and Bashir to learn this from each other.  A few more years, just to be certain.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cosmo_is_Beink_Melon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmo_is_Beink_Melon/gifts).



> Inspired by an adorable piece of aged Garak/Bashir by prisdreamsbravely.

Garak never understood the comfort humans took in luck.  He could see that it was unchanging, certainly, but even when it was negative.  If you could not manipulate luck to improve your circumstances, why would you continue to put faith in it?

He would remember to ask Doctor Bashir, on the odd occasion they were able to see each other.  Bashir had believed in luck for - oh, probably his entire life, now - but it remained as bad as ever.  Garak thought, at this rate, maybe even a few minutes of shared company would be too much to hope for.

Despite living in small and boring shacks with only an easily surmountable dirt road between them, Garak and Bashir did not see each other often anymore.  It was now Garak who worked the Federation’s odd-issue hours, visiting other planets and studying peace treaties of the past, while Bashir taught courses at the first rebuilt university on Cardassia every afternoon.

Sometimes he found time to say ‘Evening, Ambassador,’ when he saw Garak arriving home.  Garak would reply in kind, knowing luck would not grant him a chance to say everything he felt, everything from the list he had made over the years with the sole intention of shredding into thousands of pieces.  It was evening, indeed, and that was all it was.

Maybe, if he could get his body to cooperate, he could wake up in enough time to slip into Bashir’s shed for breakfast.  They could talk about his best students - invariably the ones that reminded him most of Garak - and they could finish their replicated food while staring at each other’s very real, embarrassed faces.  Yes, Garak thought he would enjoy that deeply.

Garak turned over on his mattress and asked the computer for the time: 1130 hours.  Bashir would be at work already.  Next he asked for his schedule: free until 2040, when he was required to board a shuttle to Vulcan.  Vulcan?  Hadn’t he just been to Vulcan?  He shrugged, remained in bed, and dedicated no further time to cursing his luck.

If he could just find the motivation to pack his suitcase more than five minutes prior to departing - this was the most he was capable of, nowadays - he thought he could meet the Doctor for dinner.  Or tea, or dessert, or whatever he could get out of the military replicator before Bashir caught him in the room.

This thought drove him out of bed and into a frenzied rush around his shed.  He got dressed, filled his suitcase without checking the duration of his trip, and marched across the dirt road with the case in one hand and Bashir’s clearance card in the other.  It was an imprint of the Doctor’s hand he made years ago, under the pretense of a keepsake.  There was nothing to say keepsakes couldn’t also be useful.  He pressed it to the door and entered.

“Ambassador?” Bashir’s voice rang from the back of the room, “... _Garak_?”

“Ah, Doctor, I thought you might like company for dinner.”

“I must’ve missed the door-chime,” Bashir recited, watching Garak slip the clearance card into a pocket within his tunic.

“It happens to the best of us.”

Bashir had a hard time smiling.  Fine, thought Garak, what else was there between them but discomfort.

“Weren’t you late for your shuttle last time?” Bashir attempted conversation.

“I expect your computer is in better condition than mine; the times are _never_ accurate.”

“Good, best to compare,” Bashir said.  

He sat and opened a rations packet; Garak _almost_ considered leaving and eating anything else, alone.  There was a glass of water sitting on his kitchen table that had been stagnant for weeks and, as a result, was covered in a film of dirt.  He thought a few sips of that would make him more likely to choke than Bashir was, now, on mere words.

“I, er,” he began.  A pause, another attempt.  “I hear you’re going to Vulcan?”

“I am, yes.”

“I was thinking about attending a conference this weekend.”

“Oh?  On Vulcan?”

“No, I’d rendezvous with the _Baltic_ and they’d take me the rest of the way.”

“An opportunity for some of your best students to--?”

“Just me.”

“It seems you have this all planned out, Doctor.”

“As luck would have it…” he said, raising both his voice and one hand to flutter in place of finishing the statement.  

As luck would have it, _good_ , for once.  Bashir eagerly offered to take the helm, and welcomed Garak to stow his suitcase beneath the navigator’s seat.

“All the stars do align, sometimes,” Bashir tried to write off his manufactured ‘luck’ as something much more universally impressive.

“I have no doubt of that,” Garak said, but his voice did not support his words.  “How long until we reach your friends on the _Baltic_?”

Bashir replied after completing his series of flight-checks.

“Two hours.”

An eternity of time to a touch-starved Cardassian who could barely put together ten minutes of sleep these days.  

“It’s as if I’m an honorary guest at one of your lectures, Doctor,” Garak said.

“Or like I’ve finally managed to come over for dinner.  It’s been _months_ now, hasn’t it?”

“Three of yours, yes,” Garak had not actually been keeping track.

“Damn,” Bashir quietly threatened all the time that had escaped from him.  He was determined not to let these two hours do the same.

He engaged the autopilot and turned his chair to face Garak’s, resting his arms on his knees and leaning in to close as much of the gap as he could manage.

“Tell me, Doctor,” Garak always liked to derail Bashir’s overbearing first attempts at flirtation, “was it _luck_ , you coming to Cardassia?”

“No,” he admitted, “I waited until the post opened and applied for it immediately.  Not that anyone else wanted it…. Bad luck, perhaps.”

“For the other possible applicants, you mean?”

Garak did his best to mirror the open, uninhibited pose Bashir was showing him.  He wondered how any reluctance could still exist between them, having been acquainted nearly two decades, but maybe that time was spent banking and reinvesting the original discomfort.  It certainly had not been exchanged for intimacy.  Not in Bashir’s eyes, anyway, blind as the Federation had made them.

“Yes, definitely,” Bashir said, after a long silence.

That’s all? thought Garak, That’s my invitation?

“I expect you would’ve liked to see me again sooner,” Bashir continued.

No, now we’ve gone too far the other way.  Garak sighed, stood, and took the single step required to reach Bashir’s seat.  It should not have been so difficult, not even for a human.

“As you may recall, I can be infamously patient.”

“Hmm,” Bashir tried to gauge him, but still struggled after all these years.  “Is that why you’re standing here, driving your knee into mine?  I don’t think that’s subtle _or_ patient.”

Garak slid backward, just barely, so their clothing remained in contact, but no pressure was provided from their bodies.

“What would you prefer, Doctor?”

“Oh, for _two hours_?” mused Bashir, setting his chin in one hand and trying to give his beard a studious stroke.  Garak thought he could have done better, if the Doctor would’ve allowed it.

Maybe he would.  Give it time, and luck.

Or, more precisely, give it two hours and the most clumsy and compassionate human Garak had ever met.  

He returned to his seat, delighted to see Bashir pace after him.  Eventually, Bashir took up residence behind Garak’s chair, leaning over and nervously drumming his fingers against Garak’s shoulders.  After a moment of this, he sighed and his hands relaxed.  Garak turned to look at him and was happy to find his eyes shut.  When he returned his focus to the very-much-aligned stars on the screen in front of his seat, he felt Bashir’s face settling against his hair. 

Garak did _try_ to be refined in rubbing the Doctor’s beard, honestly.  The result was a surprised mess and the quick retraction of his hand, which Bashir caught and held over Garak’s lap.   

The moment dissolved into many more, until Garak was afraid that - even if he refused to acknowledge or understand time anymore - two hours would have most certainly passed.  Two hours of Bashir’s warm breath ruffling his starched hair, two hours of Bashir’s fingers pressing expertly against the scales on his neck, two hours… but that was the very nature of luck.  Two hours, elapsed.

Bashir’s console beeped, so he sighed and returned to his seat.

“Just our luck, Doctor?”

“It seems the _Baltic_ has changed course, and the autopilot needed me to confirm the new coordinates.  That’s all.”

He typed and slid several dials while Garak watched him, jealous with every display of his dexterity.

“That puts us another hour-and-a-half off course for Vulcan,” Bashir said, with resignation Garak saw no need for.  

“At least we left early,” Garak replied.  “I can’t think of a better cause for delay, or a more competent pilot to be assigned to.”

Bashir gave some lopsided kind of laugh, and returned eagerly to his new place behind Garak.

“Just _your_ luck then, my dear Garak.”

“The same as I always count on."


End file.
